The Target

by Brad Taylor

  She said, “I have no doubt about my skills. I’ll kill him, but you make a joke about my past again, and I’ll show you my skills in full.”

  Aaron snapped, “Stop it, both of you. Daniel, I’ll not hear that talk again. We don’t disparage teammates.”

  Daniel turned red, the rebuke strong and the implications clear: Shoshana was an equal. Coming from Aaron made it even stronger, as Daniel respected him more respect anyone with whom he’d ever served.

  Aaron turned to her and said, “He didn’t mean anything by it. Calm down.”

  She said, “You both need to understand something. I’m on the side of Israel, but that doesn’t mean I blindly follow Israelis. You cross me, and I’ll kill you as easily as I will the Nazi.”

  Daniel said, “This is insane.”

  Aaron glared at him and he said nothing else. Ignoring Shoshana’s words, Aaron said, “No more fighting. I’m growing weary of it. This is a simple mission, but it’s important to our survival in the Mossad. The ramsad asked for us for a reason, and this will be our way back in.” He looked at Daniel, saying, “You and I have a history in blood. Use the skills I know you have. Don’t let personalities interfere. Understood?”

  Daniel nodded, his respect for Aaron trumping any thoughts of Shoshana.

  Aaron turned to her and said, “I don’t know your skills, but if you threaten me again, we’ll learn who’s better. I am not your enemy. Yet.” He leaned into her face, speaking in a coldly deliberate manner, his voice not rising above a conversation. “I don’t give a shit about what happened to you in the past. It’s gone. But if you screw up this mission, I will be your enemy, and I am not a man to cross.”

  He said the last with a little bit of the same rage Shoshana had bottled up inside her, and she recognized it for what it was. Saw the purity of the darkness behind his eyes, and she liked it. She nodded.

  He leaned back into his chair, glanced at both of them, then resumed his role as the calculating team leader he was. He said, “May we continue?”

  They nodded.

  He said, “Okay, then. As I was saying, you will become a hostess at the restaurant. As such, you’ll have access to the food presented. According to our information, Gunther orders the exact same thing every year, starting with a prawn salad. He’ll ask for cracked pepper—which is where you come in.”

  Aaron held up the vial on the table. Daniel said, “Is that what I think it is? The same stuff used in Amman?”

  “No, it’s not. What was used in Amman had an antidote. This does not. It’s a conotoxin from a cone snail—extremely deadly. In the wild it basically paralyzes the victim so that the snail can eat it. In this case, it’s been refined to attack the cardiovascular system. In short, it will paralyze Gunther’s heart, looking exactly like a heart attack. You will sprinkle this on the pepper, and then grind the pepper up in his salad. All we need is one small fragment to enter his mouth. The poison will be absorbed by his mucus membranes, and he’ll die within minutes.”

  Shoshana took the vial, asking, “How dangerous is it to handle?”

  Aaron said, “It goes without saying that you need to be careful with it, but it won’t penetrate skin. If it gets on a cut—even a small one—you’ll die. Wear gloves.”

  She nodded, and he said, “The restaurant is out on a pier that’s about a hundred meters long, making it very difficult to get an ambulance to the door. The odds of them being able to transport him to any resuscitation device before he dies is very slim, but it also complicates our escape, should something go wrong. Daniel and I will be inside with you, armed.”

  Shoshana said, “Sounds simple enough.”

  “It is simple, but remember, someone else might want cracked pepper. You’ll naturally serve him first, as the guest of honor, but you’ll have to feign something went wrong with the pepper mill if that happens. Switch it out. We can’t have the entire family keeling over.”

  She nodded, and he asked, “Any questions?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s get you to the restaurant for your job orientation.”

  6

  Derek Baumhauer dipped a thin piece of copper wire into a plate of resin, then rolled it in a pile of gunpowder on the table. He set it aside to dry and finished wiring a nine-volt battery and capacitor combination on his workbench. He turned to two Nokia 5110 cell phones, one dismantled. He soldered the capacitor construction to the key points of the integrated circuit board of the phone, then put it back together, the nine-volt dangling outside like the intestines of a gutted animal. Finally, he connected the copper wire—now coated in gunpowder—to the capacitor-battery.

  He held his breath and turned on the phone. It powered up, the small LCD window indicating NO CELL SERVICE.

  He smiled. Step one’s a success. Now he needed to test the device, but to do so, he needed cell coverage.

  He exited the workroom, seeing sparks fly in the barn as his brothers, Carl and Konrad, worked on a Renault Clio, a small two-door hatchback that was ubiquitous in Argentina. This one was a few years old, blue, with various dents that would allow it to blend in perfectly in downtown Buenos Aires.

  Derek got their attention, Carl setting aside a CutsAll saw and Konrad turning off a blowtorch. Derek held up the two cell phones and said, “I’m going to test. Be back in a couple of hours. How’s the car coming along?”

  Konrad said, “It’ll do. We’re making a right-side blast, thinking that he’ll be walking by on a sidewalk.”

  “And if he’s in a car?”

  “We’ll have to reconfigure for a left side blast, but that’ll be much harder to do, given he’ll be protected. Much more explosive power needed. But we already know he’ll be walking from the last three days. All we need to do is confirm placement.”

  Derek grimaced and said, “I’m not sure about that. I didn’t mind the static tracking, but I’m surprised father agreed. It’s putting us in the operation. What if Carlos says he doesn’t like your pedestrian approach and wants us to track him to his home? It’s dangerous.”

  “I know, but Carlos is paying a large sum of money. Father wants a dry run after his birthday tonight. A final confirmation. Trust in him. He wouldn’t be doing this if he thought it endangered us, and so far it hasn’t. It’s been easy. The man does the same thing every day. It amazes me he’s a Mossad agent.”

  “It still concerns me. Suppose he’s doing the same thing every day just to draw us in? We aren’t skilled in this.”

  Konrad laughed and said, “One more day. After that, they plant the car. If it doesn’t work out, or Carlos says he doesn’t like our recommendation, we leave it up to him to do with the vehicle as he sees fit.”

  Derek nodded, but his mind was turning over the comment about money. They’d never done any operation before because of cash. It had always been about ideology.

  He spent the forty-five minutes driving to Mar del Plata reflecting on what they were preparing to do. Was it worth becoming embroiled in Iran’s politics simply because they hated the Zionists as well? Facilitating Iranian strikes was one thing, but actively conducting the mission was something else.

  He entered the small coastal town on Highway 226, traveling past various businesses and mom-and-pop stores. He hit the large traffic circle that intersected with Highway 2 and pulled into a side street, checking one of his phones.

  Four bars.

  The signal was as strong as he could expect in this town. Cell service had exploded in Argentina, but mainly in the capital of Buenos Aires. Out here, four hours away, it existed, but wasn’t the primary means of communication. If anything, it was a secondary, emergency capability for businessmen who were looking at the technology as a savior for beating out a competitor, failing to realize that its young embrace would return the favor in a few short years, when it would be impossible to succeed without one.

  He set the phone wi
th the gunpowder inside a pot he’d brought for the purpose, then turned it on, waiting for it to register. Wondering if the internal electronics would function, and then wondering if it would cause the desired connection he’d built. He’d constructed plenty of destructive devices with radios, but he was entering a new world with cell phones. He was sure the theory was sound, but wasn’t as positive about his own creation.

  Basically, for any remote detonation, all that was needed was a surge of electricity to a blasting cap. The surge was easy. A battery could do that. What was hard was telling the battery to execute on command. That required a dam or wall that would be lowered only with the correct trigger. Which is where his cell phone idea came in.

  If it could get a call, causing a ring—in effect, sending electricity to a device inside the phone to make noise—it could detonate a car bomb. All that was needed was a gate.

  In theory.

  The copper wire he’d coated in gunpowder was thin enough that even a nine-volt battery would turn it hot, so much so that the gunpowder would harmlessly flare. If he could make that happen, he knew he could initiate a blasting cap.

  He checked the connection of both phones, saw they were on the network, and dialed, an eye inside the pot.

  He saw it connect, the phone now telling the “ringer” to alert the owner. Instead, it was sending current down to the capacitor, breaking the dam and allowing the nine-volt to freely juice the gunpowder.

  He hoped.

  The phone rang and rang—silently in the pot, but loud in his ear with the other cell. He watched and waited, and the phone went to voice mail. He hung up, disgusted at the failure.

  Then the gunpowder flared.

  The vehicle filled with acrid fumes, as if he’d set a book of matches on fire. He pulled back into the traffic circle, rolling his windows down and smiling.

  7

  Shoshana thought the lead waitress was a raging bitch, and considered giving her a little corrective advice with her fists, but realized the waitress probably just believed Shoshana was a nepotistic leech.

  Two days ago Aaron had introduced Shoshana to the manager, an old Jewish fisherman now too broken-down to leave the shore and working his final years running the restaurant just as he ran his fishing vessel. As it was with elements of the Jewish diaspora the world over, he’d been contacted early in the Mossad’s existence and had helped several Mossad operations with his boats. He’d been put out to pasture, so to speak, when he’d ceased leaving shore but now had coincidentally become a linchpin for their operation. Something he was more than willing to do after being told the target.

  He’d spread the story that his niece was visiting from Israel, and that she was a wayward soul. His sister—her mother—wanted to teach her some discipline and hard work. She would be here only for a week, but it was enough to show her the benefits of an honest job.

  The waitstaff, of course, agreed in public, then treated her like a punching bag in private. Especially the head waitress.

  At the small busboy’s sink, Shoshana was tying her apron, running through her mind the night’s tasks, when the dragon lady of a waitress approached and snapped a sentence in Spanish, speaking so fast Shoshana couldn’t catch it all.

  Something about the sink.

  The waitress saw her look of confusion and switched condescendingly to heavily accented English. “You have not cleaned the colanders like I asked. The chef needs to prepare the prawns as soon as he arrives, and I’m not going to listen to him yell at me. Why are you messing with the pepper grinder? That can wait.”

  No, actually it can’t. Shoshana didn’t say this, of course. She simply nodded, pulling on rubber kitchen gloves and scrubbing the colanders and the basin of the sink.

  Satisfied, the head waitress left the room, and Shoshana quit cleaning, returning to the pepper mill. She dumped the unground pepper onto a paper towel, then separated a small fraction of them. Her plan was to use the fraction of pepper on Gunther’s salad, and if anyone asked for more, she would have to return to retrieve another because hers was empty.

  She glanced at the door, seeing it closed, then withdrew the vial of liquid. Made of glass, it had a rubber stopper not unlike the tubes of blood found in a hospital, only instead of red, the liquid inside was clear with a faint yellow tint.

  She uncorked the vial and carefully dribbled out the poison, thoroughly sprinkling the pepper seeds. She completely coated the small amount with only half of the vial. She replaced the stopper, tucked the vial back in her bag, then lifted the paper towel, forming a funnel and pouring the seeds back into the grinder.

  When she was done, she placed both the paper towel and the gloves into her bag for destruction later. She returned to her work at the sink just as the head waitress returned. Seeing the cleaning wasn’t completed, the waitress became incensed.

  “What are you doing? They came early. They’re here, and you’re still messing around with the colanders. They are our best customers. How long can cleaning those take? What do they teach you in Israel? Or do you have someone else do your cleaning.”

  Shoshana ignored her, saying, “I’ll go give them their water and come back.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll take the water. You stay back here and clean. In fact, clean those pots too.”

  Shoshana said, “I’m a hostess, not a busboy.”

  “Your uncle wants you to learn, so you learn.”

  Now worried she’d miss the entire dinner, Shoshana said, “I’m not spending the night in here. That’s not right.”

  “You’ll do as I say.”

  Shoshana locked eyes with her, letting a little violence leak out. The waitress faltered under the glare, finally saying, “Okay. You can deliver the food.” In a final show of bravado that was clearly forced, she finished, “If you’ve finished cleaning.”

  Shoshana nodded, returning to the pots. Thirty minutes later, another waitress stuck her head in the room and said, “Come on. Salads are ready.”

  With a grim smile, Shoshana realized the head waitress was now afraid of her. She grabbed her pepper mill and left the room.

  • • •

  Sitting near an eastern window overlooking the ocean, Aaron and Daniel watched the Baumhauer clan settle around a long dining table at the center of the room, Gunther at the head and his three sons’ families fanning out around it, the wives fighting with the grandchildren.

  Aaron matched the face at the table with a small picture in his lap. Daniel was doing the same, and before Aaron could comment, he said, “That’s the target. No doubt.”

  Aaron nodded, taking a sip of his water. He waited for Shoshana to appear, but she did not. The same waitress that had taken their food order poured the water, then walked away.

  Daniel said, “Where’s Shoshana? Why is the waitress serving the water?”

  Aaron said, “I don’t know, but there’s no reason to panic yet. Give her a chance. She’s probably working through a problem.”

  “She brought our water, and the water for the table across the way. Something’s wrong.”

  “She said everything was fine when we saw her. She looked completely in control. She can handle the mission. If something’s happened, she’ll use her best judgment.”

  Daniel said, “That’s what concerns me.”

  A short time later, the door to the kitchen opened, and several people came out carrying plates of salad. In the lead was Shoshana.

  Aaron said, “See? Nothing to worry about.”

  He watched her approach, and she looked completely natural. As if she belonged. She set a salad in front of one of the wives, then turned to the husband to her left—a man named Konrad according to their intelligence package.

  She set the plate in front of him, and Aaron saw Shoshana falter, staring at him full-on. He glanced back, feeling the gaze, and she averted her eyes, setting another salad in fron
t of the next person. The son known as Derek.

  Then she stared at him.

  Uh-oh.

  She broke her gaze before he noticed, setting the final salad in front of Gunther himself. She became absorbed with his visage. He turned to her and said something. She nodded robotically, and pulled out a pepper grinder from her waistband. She leaned over his salad, but did nothing.

  He said something to her, and she shook her head. She turned to the waitress, mumbled a response, then raced into the kitchen. She returned thirty seconds later, carrying another pepper mill.

  Aaron had no idea what had transpired but feared the worst. She’d brought out the wrong pepper mill, leaving the poisoned one in the kitchen. It was about as unprofessional as he could imagine.

  Daniel said, “What the hell is she doing? This whole staring and running back and forth is going to be remembered.”

  “I know.”

  They both watched her sprinkle his salad with pepper, then turn to the next person. Aaron almost stood up, wanting to shout, Stop it!

  He did not, and she sprinkled the son’s salad, then continued around the table, putting pepper on every plate that wanted it.

  Aaron put his head in his hands, pulling at his hair.

  Shoshana disappeared into the kitchen, and Aaron waited on the catastrophe.

  It didn’t occur.

  Forty-five minutes later, after Shoshana had delivered the main course and kept the water filled, the family finished their meal. They paid the bill and left.

  Daniel said, “What the hell just happened?”

  8

  Daniel exploded. “You didn’t kill him because of what? Say that again?”

  It was now close to midnight. Aaron and Daniel had left shortly after the Baumhauer family, then sat fuming in the safe house until Shoshana had finished her designated shift. She’d returned, walking into the room defensively. Aaron had known immediately that whatever had happened, it had been her own decision. He’d thought it was because of some security problem. Some issue that would lead to compromise.